What is the difference between music and noise? [years-dead slappyfight revived]

[Km7]

It doesn't suggest anything by itself. You relate it to that. You are free to create whatever you want, and I am free to call something ingenious or crap, if I wish and if I find this shows my views in the best way - I have the right to express my views.

[Km7]

I think all musical 'modes' have their 'goods' and 'bads', I never suggested they don't.

[Meffy]

Looks to me as if the answer is leaning towards "No meaningful universal distinction is possible between noise and music. Each person must decide." Astonishing, no?

[eduardo_b]

(I won't list names and works here, since my aim is not to get into polemics or insult someone's taste).

you cant do that!
how in hell are we supposed to argue against a stance like that?

the "music is organised noise" is a very modern and western approach, in essence much of what you are dismissing probably has more historical basis and a wider world view than most of what you consider to be music.

the only difference is intent, it has naff all to do with the listener, the listener only has the qualification to like or dislike, not to dismiss something without understnading.
the same goes for art, the whole "its art if i like it" stance is complete bollocks, its art if the artist intends it to be.

elvis is/was shit!

I think you've pretty much stated why differentiating between music and noise isn't really possible beyond one's personal tastes, preferences and appreciation.

[Km7]

I leave people to decide for themselves. I simply summarized my view, I used words like 'personal', 'prefer', and also 'good' and 'bad' in quotes.

[vurt]

It doesn't suggest anything by itself. You relate it to that. You are free to create whatever you want, and I am free to call something ingenious or crap, if I wish and if I find this shows my views in the best way - I have the right to express my views.

of course you have a right to express your views, i wasnt suggesting you didnt.
my point was you can of course say "its shit music" you cannot however say "its not music". there is a big difference, you can even call the people who enjoy listening to noise music "weird" or "abnormal" if you wish, but the intent of the composer/artist is what makes something, not peoples reception or perception of that thing

[whyterabbyt]

music shouldn't sound like noise because that makes it noise?
no, that's not sufficient. more reasoning required, less circular argumentation.

You are the one who treated my words like that.

Like what? I asked a question and got an inadequate reply, so said it was inadequate. if you don't want them perceived as inadequate, make them less inadequate.

[vurt]

(I won't list names and works here, since my aim is not to get into polemics or insult someone's taste).

you cant do that!
how in hell are we supposed to argue against a stance like that?

the "music is organised noise" is a very modern and western approach, in essence much of what you are dismissing probably has more historical basis and a wider world view than most of what you consider to be music.

the only difference is intent, it has naff all to do with the listener, the listener only has the qualification to like or dislike, not to dismiss something without understnading.
the same goes for art, the whole "its art if i like it" stance is complete bollocks, its art if the artist intends it to be.

elvis is/was shit!

I think you've pretty much stated why differentiating between music and noise isn't really possible beyond one's personal tastes, preferences and appreciation.

except, you need to note whose opinion/preference/tastes counts to make that distinction, ie it isnt yours unless its your production

[eduardo_b]

(I won't list names and works here, since my aim is not to get into polemics or insult someone's taste).

you cant do that!
how in hell are we supposed to argue against a stance like that?

the "music is organised noise" is a very modern and western approach, in essence much of what you are dismissing probably has more historical basis and a wider world view than most of what you consider to be music.

the only difference is intent, it has naff all to do with the listener, the listener only has the qualification to like or dislike, not to dismiss something without understnading.
the same goes for art, the whole "its art if i like it" stance is complete bollocks, its art if the artist intends it to be.

elvis is/was shit!

I think you've pretty much stated why differentiating between music and noise isn't really possible beyond one's personal tastes, preferences and appreciation.

except, you need to note whose opinion/preference/tastes counts to make that distinction, ie it isnt yours unless its your production

I thought I was implying that the person creating the music is the one making the choices. I didn't include listeners because they will only hear the "final" version, which is determined by the author/artist.

Details, details.

[Km7]

the intent of the composer/artist is what makes something, not peoples reception or perception of that thing

Yes, and the artist/composer can make whatever they want and call it whatever they want, but then people can agree, disagree, dismiss, etc. It's part of the feedback.

[vurt]

the intent of the composer/artist is what makes something, not peoples reception or perception of that thing

Yes, and the artist/composer can call it music, but then people can dismiss it. It's part of the feedback.

yes, but its still music, is the only point im making.

[Km7]

It's relatively music.

[Zergling]

You know noise has level of quality too?

I prefer analog noise myself.

[Km7]

vurt, do you mean that you prefer something like this: "Sounds that are intentionally arranged/produced by human beings are music."? If you are using tools (like hammer, soldering iron, etc.) to make something and you're making sound / noise by doing your job, we could hardly say that your intention is the sound, so is it music? But if your intention is to produce this specific sound and record it, then is it music? And I intentionally said 'by human beings' - what about birds, then? They can sound pretty organized, pretty rhythmic, etc. Is this music?

[Jafo]

Not everybody has the same tastes, so a universal definition of "music" is probably impossible. Yet it's more than purely personal, since there are styles that some people consider music and others consider noise and still others know they should consider music but can't make sense of (bebop falls into this category for me, but at least I know I'm wrong).

What does "noise" mean, anyway? I'd imagine that "meaningless sound" is a good start, but doesn't that just mean "sounds I can't comprehend the meaning of"? When I'm really sick from the flu (brown-bottle or not), even Mozart seems like meaningless noise, 'cause my attention just can't follow it.

Maybe we shouldn't be dogmatic or judgmental about making the distinction between "music" and "noise."

But really, what does any word mean? I don't know if any word is anything more than just an association of a symbol with a set of experiences and meanings, and since we can't all have identical experiences or associations of meaning, our ideas can't all be the same. Hence, there are probably few words whose meaning is identical to everybody. Is it "filet mignon" or a "chunk of a defenseless castrated bull"? Same event in space-time, but completely different experiences of that event. Words are empty. (And this furthermore leads into another infinite regress of the aesthetics of a symbol -- if we were to call a rose a plontz, would plontzes be as common in poetry? And is "cellar door" truly the most beautiful phrase in the English language" Right now "air conditioning" sounds infinitely more pleasant...)

Err, where was I... oh yeah, rediscovering the wisdom of "Shut up and play your guitar."